I consume a genuinely ridiculous amount of content, books, podcasts, videos, articles I've been saving for twenty plus years into a filing cabinet in my basement that I haven't opened in probably as long. For most of my life, the weak link in all of that consuming was always me: I'd underline something, screenshot a quote, tell myself I'd come back to it, and then watch it disappear into the enormous warehouse of things I once found interesting. This episode is about how AI changed that, not by writing content for me, but by helping me actually use everything I take in. The old model of consuming content was broken by design Books, podcasts, notes, saved articles, they all sat in a system (my filing cabinet, in my case) waiting to be remembered and retrieved, and most of it never was. I moved from Pocket to Notion a while back, and now every transcript and saved article lands in one searchable place instead of a drawer I forget exists. A real example, fact checking a nutrition article while mowing the lawn I ran a health article's advice past AI and asked which parts were actually backed by evidence versus which weren't. It agreed on some things (choline from eggs, for instance) and helped me push back on claims that didn't have real research behind them, including asking for sources when something felt shaky. A real example, turning career advice into something personal I listened to Mel Robbins interview Carla Harris on career advice by decade of life, then had AI pull out what actually applied to me at my age and stage, including some hard self reflection about growing up needing to please other people rather than asking myself what I actually wanted. Why this makes creators better instead of making everyone the same The fear that AI will homogenize content is real if you use it lazily, ask ten people to "write a podcast about productivity" and you get ten forgettable scripts. But the better use starts before the writing: what irritated you, what you noticed, what connected to something you've been thinking about for months. That's the part AI can't generate on its own, it can only help you dig it out. AI as a sparring partner, not a ghostwriter Because everything I save lives in one system now, AI can connect a career podcast to my own ikigai episode from months ago, warn me when a draft has an edge I don't actually want, or collapse a dozen saved stretching articles into one usable routine, all without me having to remember any of it existed. What I actually want from AI as a creator Not speed, and not friction free content. I want something that helps me notice more, question more, and remember what I already know, so that by the time I turn on a microphone, I have something that's actually mine to say. If you're a content hungry person who's tried and failed to build a "system" for everything you read and listen to, this one's for you. I'd love to hear how you're using AI to think, not just to produce, send me your version. 00:00 Intro, twenty years of saved articles I never look at 01:59 Why the old model of consuming content breaks down 03:28 Moving from Pocket to Notion, building a real system 04:27 What AI actually adds beyond summarizing 06:58 Case study, fact checking a nutrition article and a career podcast 11:53 Why bringing yourself to the process is what prevents generic content 16:21 Connecting new ideas to old ones, the ikigai example 21:19 Turning saved articles into one usable stretching routine 22:21 How AI helped me notice my own "harsh edge" while writing 26:22 Why not everything needs to become content, wrap up [email protected] jillfromthenorthwoods.com
Jill’s Links
https://jillfromthenorthwoods.com/ - Find my podcasts, videos, downloads and ways to contact me
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspod
https://x.com/NorthWoodsJill
Email the podcast at [email protected]
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